Rangefinder Idea...

A

Alcfalath

Active Hunter
Hey all,

Im currently awaiting a fullset of armour to rock up, and Im having a rather unique and intriguing thought about my rangefinder, after I put the stalk on a Servo... Im thinking of expanding on CaptJono's idea with the rear projected Rangefinder pic facing the helmet..

Anyone know of an lcd screen small enough to fit on the rangefinder... and maybe a really small webcam to sit on the outside of that?...

Just a thought... might play around with the idea once i get all my stuff. :D

Let me know what you think/practicality/feasability :)
 
My Father-In-Law had the same idea, and he was looking at Cell phones screens. Just finding one small enough...
 
There are LCD screens that fit into cell phones that would be small enough for that...problem is miniaturization. I doubt you would be able to stuff all of the circuitry needed to run that LCD into the RF head. Also, you would run into the problem of having an RF stalk hollow enough for 3-4 wires (most I have seen can only hold 2) and still be strong enough to keep from breaking in a gust of wind.

After DragonCon (When I have some $$ again =D) I'm going to start working on using the EzView LCD TV glasses as my viewplate inside the helmet. It will attach to a night vision camera via RCA cables and should work as far as the concept of it goes. The only problems with this setup that I see are being able to keep your bearings when you are seeing only in 2D TV view instead of 3D real world view.

But yeah, I don't think much work can be done with the RF due to it small size.
 
there is a small square lcd screen on the front/outside of my razr phone that if you turn the camera mode on then close the phone, the image from the camera shows on the small screen on the outside. there you've got small camera and lcd in one package. The screen is just under 1inch by 1inch(7/8ths or 14/16ths of an inch or so). Actually it's 2cm by 2cm exactly (crazy english system metric makes so much more sense)

I don't know much about circuitry and such but it seems like you'd have pretty much everything right there. The issue still remains with the amount of wireing you can run through the stalk.
 
Thats still alot of circuit board running through the phone that allows the mini-cam to display on the screen. Not to mention that you would have to keep the phones programming intact for the camera to run and transmit to the LCD.

The amount of room in a normal range finder is approximately 1.5" long X 1 inch wide X 1 inch deep, and that may be stretching it for some. You have to throw out all of junk circuitry in favor of a basic camera, receiver, and screen to save space. The only way this MAY work is by having the camera and reciever end both in the helmet and figuring out how to run the wires up to the LCD screen, because that's all you could have in the RF at this point. You would need to know proper pin-out for the screen, then tackle the problem of running the ribbon cord up through the stalk.

Even the smallest ribbon cord folded up is going to be pretty big for such a small space. It's going to be VERY fragile if you want to stick with a canon size RF stalk.
 
Ok I think I may have found something that may work for you. I'll keep looking to see if I can find and even smaller screen. But 1.5" is the smallest I have found so far.

http://www.dontronics-shop.com/home.php?cat=263

Hi all this is my very first post, and I am looking to add video to my view finder as well once I get to that part of my bucket that I start last night.
 
Thats still to big though. The screen is small yeah, but the unit itself is built around the screen. The RF screen opening is approximately 3/4" X 3/4" so you need something no bigger then 1 inch, otherwise your going to loose screen. Also, you still have to run the 5 pin cord up to the RF.
 
However, just imagine flipping a switch on your gaultlet, and your rangfinder comes down, and starts a live feed of whats in front of you....

Heeeyyy.... Matt just had an awesome Idea (yes i talk in 3rd person)....
Fett had macrobinocular 360 degree vision... what about a cam facing rearward...? with the lcd either on the RF or in the helmet? :p

poses a sweet idea...

Oh and GCNgamer128... the pursuit for making something that little bit better is always worth the effort... its how the human race becomes technologically smarter :-D
 
Hence back to my first post in the thread. I'm going to be attempting to put together a working viewplate using LCD TV glasses that simulate a 50" LCD TV.

However, the view inside the helmet will only be 2D and you'll only be able to pick up what one camera can see. There is no device small enough yet to combine multiple cameras (One part of my job was to design and build DVR video capture systems.) as capture cards are around the size of a normal video card. The onboard IC's are what is limiting that. If you were to use an external device, camera converter boxes take wall voltage...so walking around with one is out of the question. You have to have something portable, scalable, and light.

The rear-facing camera would work with the RF idea. Putting an LCD inside the helmet without being able to reduce the resolution (which is only possible if you can reprogram the EPROM on the vid controller.) doesn't work because all you see is moving blurs. I tried this with a 2" LCD screen, and although I could make out people...it caused bad eyestrain leading to headaches.
 
hmmm well i can pose a solution to the power problem, put some heavy duty batteries into the jet pack.. would make it a bit heavier, and would be a bit of wiring...(concealable through the gauntlet hoses, or under the suit), but i know ill be able to rough it out...

i suppose when i get my armour i'll try out some stuff :)
 
Alcfalath said:
However, just imagine flipping a switch on your gaultlet, and your rangfinder comes down, and starts a live feed of whats in front of you....
Click to expand...



And here all this time I've been using my eyes like a sucker to see whats going on in front of me... =)


phil

j/k man i'm blind.




j/k good luck with it.
 
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